Vitamin D3 – It’s Critical to Your Health

Many of us have been brainwashed into believing that exposure to the sun is bad for you. It’s true that chronic, excessive exposure to sunlight does increase the risk of skin cancer, but sensible, moderate sun exposure is absolutely crucial to your health because this is the way your skin produces Vitamin D3, one of the most powerful healing chemicals that your body can produce.

Your skin produces Vitamin D3 through

direct exposure to the sun

Although it has been labeled a vitamin, D3 is actually a very powerful steroid hormone that regulates over 2000 (of your 30,000) genes.

Many experts believe that Vitamin D deficiency is epidemic throughout the entire United States.

Watch a related video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=DVjClX0o7Q8

Some Pertinent Statistics

• Over 40,000 Americans die annually from cancer caused by Vitamin D deficiency.

• It has been estimated that approximately one billion people worldwide have vitamin D deficiency or insufficiency.

• 40% of the U.S. population is vitamin D deficient.

• 42% of African American women of childbearing age are deficient in vitamin D.

• 48% of young girls (9-11 years old) are vitamin D deficient.

• 76% of pregnant mothers are severely vitamin D deficient, causing a vitamin D deficiency in their unborn children (and this predisposes them to type 1 diabetes, arthritis, multiple sclerosis and schizophrenia later in life).

• 81% of children who had Vitamin D deficient mothers were also Vitamin D deficient.

Some Facts about Vitamin D3 and Vitamin D3 Deficiency

• Direct exposure to sunlight is the only reliable way to generate Vitamin D. Although some foodstuffs contain Vitamin D, you cannot get enough from food sources.

• Vitamin D prevents prostate cancer, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, depression, colon cancer and schizophrenia.

• The further you live from the Equator, the more exposure you need to the sun in order to generate Vitamin D.

• Vitamin D deficiency causes muscle weakness.

• People with dark skin pigmentation may need 20 to 30 times more exposure to sunlight as fair skinned people to generate the same amount of Vitamin D.

• Vitamin D is crucial for calcium absorption in your intestines.

• Rickets, a bone-wasting disease, is caused by vitamin D deficiency.

• Chronic vitamin D deficiency is often misdiagnosed as fibromyalgia because its symptoms are so similar: muscle weakness, aches and pains.

• Your risk of developing serious diseases like diabetes and cancer is reduced 50% - 80% through simple, sensible exposure to natural sunlight 2-3 times each week.

• Your skin CANNOT produce Vitamin D3 through exposure to sun that has been filtered by glass i.e. if you are in your home or in your office.

How to Get Your Share of Vitamin D3

The best source of Vitamin D3 is direct exposure to the sun (and it’s free) - expose 6-10% of your body to the sun a couple of times a week and this should be sufficient to get all the Vitamin D your body needs to function optimally. Some experts suggest daily sun exposure, from 10 to 15 minutes per day.

Cod liver oil is another good source of Vitamin D3.

You can get some Vitamin D from your diet, but it’s unlikely that you will get all you need. Oily fish like salmon, sardines, tuna and mackerel contains Vitamin D, but you would have to eat salmon and mackerel 3-5 times a week in order to get your Vitamin D requirement.

You can also use a Vitamin supplement, but make sure that it is Vitamin D3 and NOT D2. There are two forms of Vitamin D that the human body can synthesize and use: D2 and D3 – the latter is a lot more powerful and effective.